May 14 was the 20th anniversary of my crash date. I was looking through my e-mails and I received one from an old friend.  When I finally moved down to the fourth floor from ICU, I learned that I had been run over by an intoxicated driver.  Although I’d visited by the police they hadn’t told me that detail about the crash.  When I found out that I was the victim of an intoxicated driver I ordered my mother to hand me the phone book.  I looked up Mother’s Against Drunk Driving and called.

“Hello, this is MADD,” the voice on the other end informed me.

“My name is Tiana Tozer and I would like to speak to the president,” I said.

“This is the president,” the voice on the other end informed me.

“I just found out that I was run over by a drunk driver and I want to do something about this problem,” I informed her.

I don’t actually remember this conversation, but Barb, who was in 1988 the president of the Eugene Chapter of MADD, told this story to me years later.  I sent her a Christmas letter in 2007 and recently when I was cleaning out my inbox I ran into the e-mail she sent in response.

“I am proud of what you are doing and am beginning to believe in miracles when I remember meeting you that day in your hospital bed and wondering if you would ever walk again, then learning all you have done (more than most of us).”

I hope that all the people who helped me through what can only be termed as a very dark period in my life are proud of the life they saved and the person that I have become.

But enough sentimentality if I were home I would have thrown a crash party after all 20 years of survival is something to celebrate.